I went into work on Tuesday to prepare Epiphany and to sort a few things that were coming up. I was pleased to be able to leave in the early evening with everything sorted. The following day was New Years Eve and after a morning of pottering around the apartment I returned to work for the two New Year’s Vigil masses. The feast of Mary, Mother of God is a holy day of obligation here in US so I was delighted to see so many people in church. I had thought that folk paid little attention to such holy days but clearly when it falls on a holiday people come out!

As soon as I’d played the last chord I was off driving to meet up for dinner with a few work colleagues. It was a lovely evening with me doing my ‘mad uncle Phil’ act for the younger element. On my drive home I received an unexpected call from my old school music teacher, Paul Reed. He had popped out to the toilet at 4.30am and decided to ring me! Half an hour later it was almost midnight here and I was home and able to share a glass and a natter with him.

The following morning I was back in church for a couple of New Years’ Day masses with a three hour gap in between, most of which was spent chatting with one of the priests and designing the content for the next month’s school masses.

One of my singers from church agreed to go for a beer with me and he took me for my first trip to Hooters. As soon as I went in I realised why it was called this! An assortment of young maidens squeezed into shorts and t-shirts reeked of exploitation to me. We stayed for one expensive drink before moving to a pub in my neighbourhood.

In the evening and somewhat knackered I watched a few movies to take away the pain of having discovered that Chelsea had lost to Tottenham!